Living with post-concussion syndrome means pacing rather than resting completely, protecting sleep, gradually reintroducing activity including exercise, and treating the specific maintaining factors rather than waiting for time alone to fix it. Prolonged rest is now understood to prolong symptoms rather than shorten them, so graded return to activity including light aerobic exercise is the better approach.
Living with post-concussion syndrome means pacing rather than resting completely, protecting sleep, gradually reintroducing activity including exercise, and treating the specific maintaining factors rather than waiting for time alone to fix it. Prolonged rest is now understood to prolong symptoms rather than shorten them, so graded return to activity including light aerobic exercise is the better approach.
Early advice used to be extended rest in a dark room, and that is now understood to prolong symptoms rather than shorten them. After a brief initial period, gradual return to activity is better, including sub-symptom-threshold aerobic exercise, which has genuine evidence behind it. The principle is pacing: activity to the point where symptoms begin to rise, then stopping before they escalate, rather than either pushing through to collapse or avoiding everything.
Sleep disruption worsens every other symptom cluster, so treating it often improves the whole picture more than treating any individual complaint. Keep a consistent wake time. Screens are frequently a trigger, and adjustments help more than avoidance: reduce brightness and blue light, increase text size, take scheduled breaks before symptoms rise rather than after, and reduce visual clutter. Full screen avoidance is rarely practical or necessary.
Several maintaining factors are identifiable and treatable, and finding them changes the course more than patience does. Medication overuse headache from frequent analgesic use is common. Vestibular or oculomotor dysfunction causing dizziness and visual strain responds to targeted therapy. Deconditioning from prolonged inactivity is self-reinforcing. Anxiety about the symptoms themselves, and about whether recovery will happen, measurably worsens them and is legitimate to treat.
Clinical Neurology Specialists has been physician-owned since 1998, when Leo Germin, M.D., FAANEM founded it. Five board-certified neurologists and four advanced practice providers see patients at the Las Vegas and Henderson offices, each with its own AANEM-accredited electrodiagnostic laboratory.
Clinical Neurology Specialists is an adult outpatient neurology practice for patients 18 and older. The practice performs no surgery and operates no imaging suite, infusion suite or interventional pain programme, and provides no emergency or inpatient care.
Physician-reviewed. Reviewed by the physicians of Clinical Neurology Specialists — board-certified neurologists, AANEM-accredited electrodiagnostic laboratories, physician-owned since 1998. Reviewed 1 August 2026. This article is general education for adults 18 and older and is not a substitute for a consultation.
Sources and further reading: MedlinePlus: traumatic brain injury; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; American Academy of Neurology.
Adults 18 and older, at the Las Vegas and Henderson offices. Call 702-804-1212 or request an appointment online.